It’s not all abundance: Detectability and accessibility of food also explain breeding investment in long-lived marine animals
Large-scale climatic indices are extensively used as predictors of ecological processes, but the mechanisms and the spatio-temporal scales at which climatic indices influence these processes are often speculative. Here, we use long-term data to evaluate how a measure of individual breeding investmen...
Published in: | PLOS ONE |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , , , , , , |
Other Authors: | , , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2022
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273615 https://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273615 |
id |
crplos:10.1371/journal.pone.0273615 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
crplos:10.1371/journal.pone.0273615 2024-05-19T07:44:44+00:00 It’s not all abundance: Detectability and accessibility of food also explain breeding investment in long-lived marine animals Real, Enric Orol, Daniel Bertolero, Albert Igual, José Manuel Sanz-Aguilar, Ana Genovart, Meritxell Hidalgo, Manuel Tavecchia, Giacomo Paiva, Vitor Hugo Rodrigues Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad European Comission Ministerio de Ciéncia e Innovación Govern Balear 2022 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273615 https://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273615 en eng Public Library of Science (PLoS) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ PLOS ONE volume 17, issue 9, page e0273615 ISSN 1932-6203 journal-article 2022 crplos https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273615 2024-05-01T06:56:53Z Large-scale climatic indices are extensively used as predictors of ecological processes, but the mechanisms and the spatio-temporal scales at which climatic indices influence these processes are often speculative. Here, we use long-term data to evaluate how a measure of individual breeding investment (the egg volume) of three long-lived and long-distance-migrating seabirds is influenced by i) a large-scale climatic index (the North Atlantic Oscillation) and ii) local-scale variables (food abundance, foraging conditions, and competition). Winter values of the North Atlantic Oscillation did not correlate with local-scale variables measured in spring, but surprisingly, both had a high predictive power of the temporal variability of the egg volume in the three study species, even though they have different life-history strategies. The importance of the winter North Atlantic Oscillation suggests carry-over effects of winter conditions on subsequent breeding investment. Interestingly, the most important local-scale variables measured in spring were associated with food detectability (foraging conditions) and the factors influencing its accessibility (foraging conditions and competition by density-dependence). Large-scale climatic indices may work better as predictors of foraging conditions when organisms perform long distance migrations, while local-scale variables are more appropriate when foraging areas are more restricted (e.g. during the breeding season). Contrary to what is commonly assumed, food abundance does not directly translate into food intake and its detectability and accessibility should be considered in the study of food-related ecological processes. Article in Journal/Newspaper North Atlantic North Atlantic oscillation PLOS PLOS ONE 17 9 e0273615 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
PLOS |
op_collection_id |
crplos |
language |
English |
description |
Large-scale climatic indices are extensively used as predictors of ecological processes, but the mechanisms and the spatio-temporal scales at which climatic indices influence these processes are often speculative. Here, we use long-term data to evaluate how a measure of individual breeding investment (the egg volume) of three long-lived and long-distance-migrating seabirds is influenced by i) a large-scale climatic index (the North Atlantic Oscillation) and ii) local-scale variables (food abundance, foraging conditions, and competition). Winter values of the North Atlantic Oscillation did not correlate with local-scale variables measured in spring, but surprisingly, both had a high predictive power of the temporal variability of the egg volume in the three study species, even though they have different life-history strategies. The importance of the winter North Atlantic Oscillation suggests carry-over effects of winter conditions on subsequent breeding investment. Interestingly, the most important local-scale variables measured in spring were associated with food detectability (foraging conditions) and the factors influencing its accessibility (foraging conditions and competition by density-dependence). Large-scale climatic indices may work better as predictors of foraging conditions when organisms perform long distance migrations, while local-scale variables are more appropriate when foraging areas are more restricted (e.g. during the breeding season). Contrary to what is commonly assumed, food abundance does not directly translate into food intake and its detectability and accessibility should be considered in the study of food-related ecological processes. |
author2 |
Paiva, Vitor Hugo Rodrigues Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad European Comission Ministerio de Ciéncia e Innovación Govern Balear |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Real, Enric Orol, Daniel Bertolero, Albert Igual, José Manuel Sanz-Aguilar, Ana Genovart, Meritxell Hidalgo, Manuel Tavecchia, Giacomo |
spellingShingle |
Real, Enric Orol, Daniel Bertolero, Albert Igual, José Manuel Sanz-Aguilar, Ana Genovart, Meritxell Hidalgo, Manuel Tavecchia, Giacomo It’s not all abundance: Detectability and accessibility of food also explain breeding investment in long-lived marine animals |
author_facet |
Real, Enric Orol, Daniel Bertolero, Albert Igual, José Manuel Sanz-Aguilar, Ana Genovart, Meritxell Hidalgo, Manuel Tavecchia, Giacomo |
author_sort |
Real, Enric |
title |
It’s not all abundance: Detectability and accessibility of food also explain breeding investment in long-lived marine animals |
title_short |
It’s not all abundance: Detectability and accessibility of food also explain breeding investment in long-lived marine animals |
title_full |
It’s not all abundance: Detectability and accessibility of food also explain breeding investment in long-lived marine animals |
title_fullStr |
It’s not all abundance: Detectability and accessibility of food also explain breeding investment in long-lived marine animals |
title_full_unstemmed |
It’s not all abundance: Detectability and accessibility of food also explain breeding investment in long-lived marine animals |
title_sort |
it’s not all abundance: detectability and accessibility of food also explain breeding investment in long-lived marine animals |
publisher |
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273615 https://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273615 |
genre |
North Atlantic North Atlantic oscillation |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic North Atlantic oscillation |
op_source |
PLOS ONE volume 17, issue 9, page e0273615 ISSN 1932-6203 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273615 |
container_title |
PLOS ONE |
container_volume |
17 |
container_issue |
9 |
container_start_page |
e0273615 |
_version_ |
1799484584130248704 |